Time Will Fly, Yet I Will Die
by Group Hugs For Everyone
Summary: It only takes a glimpse into the mind of a serial killer to unravel the best knit minds of society. One-shot, semi-dark.


_**A/N: **My first attempt at a Heroes semi-romance, you be warned. I support Pylar, Mylar, and Sylaire. What? Sylar NEEDS someone. Selle, however, I'm not too crazy about. (Saya makes meh gag.) Anyways, you must read to discover what this one is. Yes, I realize I'm being overly-dramatic. 'Tis so fun.  
**Warnings: **...Darn. You got me, it's slash. Also mentions of suicide, murder, and other adult-ish thematics. Hence the rating. No smut.  
**Spoilers: **None. At least, I don't think so.  
**Season: **Seventeen! No, seriously. This is pretty much a AU, no season.  
**Disclaimer: **I would not be here if I owned Heroes, I'd be off shooting the next episode and melting all over Milo and Zach. (And probably sending 'anonymous' e-mails with drawings of mine attached.) 'Tis Kring and NBC(Bum, bum, bum)_

* * *

They say you can change. That life is what you wish it to be, and they think you can change or that they can make you change. They gladly separate from the pact to help you, despite the protests you send. The _proof_ that they're wrong, and yet they come.

_Tick-tock. _

One-two.

And they step forward. Laughing, at first. Sobbing, at last. They try, and try, and try. You push, they pull, until they give you that slightest bit of hope before disappearing in a huff. They never realize they were finally scratching the surface, they don't realize they worsened it. They don't realize it was them that made you build higher walls, change every lock and key. They never realize.

Until, that is, the next one comes along, all smiles and hope. God, they never stop coming. They never stop trying, failing, cursing, grabbing, lying, praying, falsely loving, crying, dying. Again and again and again. Over and over they come until there is nothing left but a heart broken beyond repair and a million walls of steel, traps every corner.

Why won't they stop?

_Tick-tock._

Three-four.

You've become a monster; crying for hope in the night, killing that exact hope in the day. Life is a burden now, and every day you sit at your mother's grave and tell her it wasn't her fault. She'd be so disappointed, wondering where she'd gone wrong. It's better this way, you tell yourself day after day, this way she doesn't have to know what life has done to her precious baby. Doesn't have to know what you've done to yourself.

What you let them do to you.

You hide behind a smirk, a appearance of confidence and ease. You act like you know what you're doing because, in all honesty, you do. It's what you were made to do, squashing one bug after the next, burying yourself in the ashes of the consequences of what you've become. Even the consequences died eventually. The guilt no longer thrashes wildly in what is left of your mangled heart. It's masochistic, and it's fantastic.

_Tick-tock. _

Five-six.

It's brilliant, the pain that you now find joy in. And sleep is no longer troubled or deep, it's empty. The dreams and nightmares are long gone, the bodies and skeletons taken from the closet (and wasn't that closet over-flowing?) to be buried with the remains of your previous life. They've given up on trying to crawl out of the soil, and only occasionally let out a painful moan to remind you. But it no longer catches your attention and fear, because it means nothing. You mean nothing.

They still won't stop coming.

The power you once gained from each death has diminished into a pitiful scrap of cloth made to look like a symbol of power, a badge, a award. _Award for the largest, pathetic piece of flesh and bones on the planet. You. _Yeah, great award. Damn awards don't stop coming.

_**Tick-tock. **_

Seven-eight.

Sometimes, when things are at their bleakest, there is this one shimmer of light. One single relief that could be yours, have you the courage, the honor, the strength to get it.

Until you realize that you aren't worthy of it. You aren't worthy of death, because you have too much power. Nobody could kill you, and you don't have the damn guts to do it yourself. It's pathetic, because you cower in the corner and pray for something that you know will never happen. You sit there, praying for relief, praying for the hope that kill if it gets to close.

You're weak.

_**TICK-TOCK. **_

Nine-ten.

Weak, weak, weak. It's a mantra that that is chanted daily, and eventually you can't even hear what is repeated so often, it's become natural. Natural selection, natural death, naturally weak. Naturally pathetic.

And they don't stop coming.

They never stop coming.

_**TICK-TOCK.**_

Eleven-twelve.

Don't....

Stop...

Pain.

_**TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK.**_

Thirteen-fourteen-fifteen-sixteen.

He doesn't stop, won't stop.

Can't.

Help?

_**TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK.**_

Seventeen-eighteen-nineteen-twenty-twenty one-twenty two.

Weak, weak.

So. Damn. Weak.

_Tick...tock._

And they call your name as you take your last pathetic, weak, pained, damned last breath.

Twenty three-twenty four.

No. Not they. _He. _

_He_ calls your name, so pained and soft. And you wonder that maybe, just maybe, it was a mistake. For his breath is labored, and his eyes bore into yours so intensely.

_Tick_

"Sylar..."

_Tock_

"Gabe, don't..."

_Twenty five_

"Leave me..."

_Twenty six._

Goodbye, Peter.

**Tick.**


End file.
